The chrome web store is a really a weird place, it’s a bunch of bundled html5 apps, homepage buttosn that goes to some website & chrome extensions that puts buttons in your toolbar. The first time I had a look at that store I was surprised to see that some apps had actually millions of users. There are really opportunities to be taken here.
I first launched WeddingDeck more than one year ago on the store & had 7720 install to date, not to shabby considering it’s a niche app to manage your wedding.
Now I’m ready to launch my second app on the store, Genius Bargain is a price comparison app that does it on the fly while you shop & help you save money. When I shop online my process pretty much look like this:
* Check a random site like Jackthread or amazon.
* Find a product I like.
* Look if there is a better deal elsewhere.
Wouldn’t that be awesome if you could eliminate the last step? Well that’s exactly what Genius Bargain does.
As you browse your favorite e-commerce website Genius Bargain check if the item you see has a better deal elsewhere and show you that deal if it exist. It’s a browser extension that have access to your page content and can push content in it.
Simple as that.
What about revenue
The api I use is a pure advertising rev-share system, so I get money when someone click on a deal. Frankly getting any API to approve me was a big hurdle, it seems 3rd party advertisers are not to happy to get comparisons directly on their site.
The future
I need to port the extension to firefox. Then there is a lot of other stuff I want to do within the app, so that’s really just a starting point & unfortunately the product matching is not the best, some works is required there too.
Head on to geniusbargain.com for more informations on the extension (I currently only support the US, UK is coming soon & I’m working on finding an api provider for Canada).